I'm a semi-retired/retarded lifelong professional musician. I've been making music professionally since 1958. I started out sitting on my Dad's lap playing piano between his hands. My first band was a group named The Sessions. My drummer in that band was Jerry Hayes who later became a world class songwriter with songs like "Who's Cheating Who" and "Rolling With the Flow" to his credit. Unfortunately, Jerry passed away a few months ago in Memphis. My brother Duane played bass and did the lead vocals with Steve King on sax and Clyde Eubanks on guitar. We played mostly lounges in the NW Arkansas area and were Conway Twitty's opening act numerous times. Jamming with Conway after hours is one of my favorite memories of those days. With The Sessions, I played my way through the University of Arkansas until 1965, when I joined a road group named The Emcee's, a show band who toured mostly in Canada. We played all over Ontario and made bi-yearly sweeps though Oklahoma and Arkansas so that we could get home once in a while. Dave Teegarden on drums, Jerry Yount on guitar, our leader Tom McClelland on vocals and Dennis Rowan on bass comprised that group. Dave later went on to be half of Teegarden and VanWinkle and was also with Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band. After Dave left The Emcees, Dwayne English took over the drum throne and was with us until the end. I would play again with Dwayne as he was the drummer for A Grain of Salt when I was with them. Dwayne later spent 17 years or so on Mel Tillis's Band. The Emcees disbanded in 1972 and I wound up in Tulsa, doing a single act and did studio work on country and gospel albums at Derrick Studios. While in Tulsa, I also did some road work with The John D. LeVan Trio (John also did a stint with the Emcees as well) and Bobby Andersons' A Grain of Salt Band. I went back on the road full time in 1977 with the Roy Clark Show. With Roy's band (Rodney Lay and the Wild West) I played nearly every state in the union along with an oversea trip to England, France and Monte Carlo. On that trek we filmed a BBC special in England, played a show in Cannes, France and also at The Year of the Child celebration in Monte Carlo. After a 2 year run with Roy, I hung up my rock and roll shoes and returned to the NW Arkansas area to devote all my time to my family who were growing up without me. Being Dad was more important to me than anything. I found a gig at an upscale restaurant and bar named The Tale of the Trout where I played 5 nights a week for 11 years. I still play private parties and one-nighters as a single and produce a few CD's for local recording studios from time to time.
My three children now have families of their own and we are blessed with a great group of grandkids to enjoy. Though I offically retired at 65 years of age and started collecting the rocking chair money, I'm still making music-----still going strong---and like Willie said, "Still crazy after all these years.".. MYSPACELAYOUTSPY CODE START -->
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